Trade News

Dealerships must remain vigilant about the health and safety of employees and customers amid the coronavirus pandemic, say three groups that each have had to deal with cases of employees who tested positive for the virus.

Dealers have adapted to new realities amid the pandemic, including instituting thorough safety protocols for employees such as requiring daily health questionnaires, temperature checks and wearing face masks, panelists said in the latest edition of the online Automotive News Retail Forum: Dealer Discussions series, which focused on employee issues and safety.

Billy Fuccillo Jr., president of Fuccillo Automotive Group with 23 stores in New York and three in Florida, said he had multiple staffers at one dealership test positive. That led to closing the store for a few days for heightened cleaning including inside the air ducts and air filtration systems, he said. That store also instituted a temperature check policy.

"We really took…

In the early peak of the pandemic, public transit agencies across the country saw sharp declines in ridership, as did ride-sharing and bike-sharing companies.

But of these forms of personal mobility, micromobility — including bikes and scooters — is most likely to bounce back, according to an analysis from McKinsey. Despite COVID-19 disruptions to the micromobility industry, recovery is possible — so long as companies prepare appropriately.

In a report released July 16, the global consulting firm considered the short-term impact of COVID-19 on the future of micromobility, and how the industry, consumers and cities are evolving to accommodate options such as bikes and scooters.

Micromobility companies had been struggling to maintain profitability even before the pandemic hit. But consumer demand has since sparked a boom in bikes and e-bike rides and an uptick in use of scooter-sharing apps — showing that the lull in micromobility use pre-crisis was somew…

Merger talks between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and France's PSA Group were defined by a series of starts and stops before the boards of both companies gave a mandate to senior management teams in October to finalize discussions and reach a binding memorandum of understanding, according to a regulatory filing late Friday.

The preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that talks between the companies were halted twice, once when FCA proposed a merger with Groupe Renault in May 2019 and again three months later when there was a disagreement between the automakers on the amount of the pre-merger distribution to FCA's shareholders.

The filing sheds light on the timeline of the merger saga.

During the third and fourth quarters of 2018, the filing said PSA and FCA executives had "several interactions" regarding limited cooperation, projects that are common in the auto industry and usually limited to certain vehicle models …

Hertz Global Holdings Inc. has struck a deal that will cut the debt it owes lenders who financed its rental car fleet to less than $5 billion from $11 billion by Dec. 31, the company’s main bankruptcy lawyer said in court Friday.

Under an agreement with the lenders, Hertz has agreed to sell 182,000 cars over the next few months, Tom Lauria told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath. The deal requires Hertz to make $650 million in lease payments. The reduction in the $11 billion in vehicle debt is tied to the auto sales, Lauria said.

The deal “took a little bit of good luck,” he said, referring to a boost in the used car market that began in the last few months.

Hertz and its vehicle lenders had been fighting about how much the company owed under a lease contract that governs the fleet. Lawyer Marshall Huebner said the lenders he represents believe they were owed $1.8 billion in regular payments through Dec. 31 under that lease. Hertz and lower-ranking credi…

Rivian said Friday it expects to begin delivering a battery-electric pickup and battery-electric SUV to customers starting next summer.

The R1T pickup will arrive first, in June; the R1S utility vehicle is scheduled to roll off the line in August 2021.

The timing puts the company about six months behind original launch plans. But Rivian, like all other automakers, has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rivian, backed by Ford Motor Co., Cox Automotive, Amazon and others, began assembling vehicles on a pilot production line this week.

Building high-quality vehicles will be a challenge on multiple fronts for the upstart. The company is manufacturing in a retooled Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Ill., with new equipment and a work force that has never assembled EVs before.

Pricing has not been released.

Rivian said it will soon release information on vehicle features, the company's charging network and when customers can configur…

NEW YORK -- Ford Motor Co. has obtained commitments from enough banks to extend the maturity of at least 90 percent of $5.35 billion of revolving loans for one year, a person close to the financing said.

The automaker has been in discussions with its lenders this month about a one-year extension of its $3.35 billion, three-year main corporate revolving credit facility and its $2 billion, three-year supplemental revolving credit facility.

JP Morgan leads the deal, according to thee people close to the transaction.

Ford is seeking to address loan maturities for the first time since downgrades in March removed its last investment-grade rating. The move is expected to test banks’ willingness to lend to a household name in an industry that has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

More lenders could agree to extend before the transaction closes on July 27. The company is looking to complete the extension ahead of its earnings call on July 30, a se…

Volkswagen Group's CEO again praised Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, this time for showing it’s possible to profit off electric cars even in the midst of a global pandemic.

Tesla and VW group’s Porsche sports-car division will be among the few automakers who navigate the market turmoil caused by COVID-19 without suffering a quarterly loss, CEO Herbert Diess said on LinkedIn.

“Elon Musk delivers results that many have deemed impossible,” Diess wrote in response to a post by auto industry researcher Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer. Diess said Tesla’s results support his view that “in five to ten years the world’s most valuable company will be a mobility company -- that can be called Tesla, Apple or Volkswagen.”

Volkswagen lays claim to the auto industry’s biggest push into electric cars with a five-year investment plan worth more than 30 billion euros ($35 billion). But the rollout of its first purely battery-powered vehicle has gotten off to a bumpy start. The launch of t…

Auto supplier Gentex Corp. said Friday it swung to a second-quarter net loss as sales plunged due to extended industrywide plant shutdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The maker of high-tech rearview mirrors and cameras reported a net loss of $2.4 million compared with net income of $109 million a year earlier. Net sales fell 51 percent to $229.9 million.

Adjusted for severance-related costs net of tax, net income was $4.6 million, the company said. Gentex recorded positive cash flow from operations of $39.2 million despite the loss of production.

Gentex is one of several auto suppliers expected to release second-quarter earnings in the coming weeks.

"While the China market expanded by 9 percent in the second quarter, our historical revenue from China has been less than 10 percent of sales, so this provided very little help to offset the losses in our primary markets," CEO Steve Downing said in a statement. "The Company's primary markets i…

Local Motors will provide its autonomous Olli 2.0 shuttles to mobility operator Beep in an effort to increase the number of autonomous shuttles on roads, the companies said Thursday. The Olli 2.0 electric shuttles will join autonomous shuttle manufacturer Navya's electric shuttles in Beep's operational fleet.

"The collaborative agreement is intended to significantly expand the number of AV shuttles on public and private roads, enabling Beep and Local Motors to bring autonomous solutions to more people and enhance the rider experience through continued testing and safe deployments," the companies said in a statement.

Beep occupies an unusual space in the automated mobility world — it operates shuttle networks but makes neither self-driving technology nor the vehicles themselves. This marks the first time the company has expanded beyond a single shuttle provider.

Beep CEO Joe Moye said in an emailed statement to Automotive News that t…

Electric-vehicle makers in the cutthroat Chinese market face a potentially lethal mix of plummeting demand and a Tesla Inc. offensive, prompting more startups to see initial public offerings as a way to ensure survival.

Hozon New Energy Automobile Co. became the latest contender to launch its IPO path, saying Friday it wants one in Shanghai as soon as next year. WM Motor Technology Co. is weighing an initial stock sale in the same city as soon as this year, people familiar with the matter said. Li Auto filed for an IPO on the Nasdaq this month.

The manufacturers are vying for a foothold in China’s once heavily subsidized electric-car industry, with several being squeezed out by a lack of funding this year alone. But at the same time, the seemingly unstoppable market leader Tesla and one of its more established Chinese challengers, Nio Inc., have gained buyers in a potential sign of long-term strength for the industry.

“The strength in Tesla and Nio share…